VISUALIZING THE VOICES OF MIGRANT WOMEN WORKERS

A participatory video screening by Voices of Women Media and the Department of Sociology, University of Hong Kong

Sunday, August 6, 2017
3:00-4:30 PM
Para Site Education Room
Refreshments will be served

Para Site, Voices of Women Media (VOW), and the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong are pleased to present 42 one-minute videos scripted and directed by domestic workers, asylum-seekers, and ethnic minorities who participated in video-making training as part of the Visualizing the Voices of Migrant Women Workers project.

The 2017 VOW-HKU Participatory Video Workshop Series included eight Sunday workshops from February to April 2017. Over forty participants were trained in video production, including storyboarding, scripting, assembling crews, shooting, art direction, location scouting, sound production, and editing. Each participant scripted and directed their own video, in addition to working on other participants’ crews as producers, art directors, gaffers, sound technicians, location scouts, camerapersons, and actors. Participants included members of the HKU Domestic Workers Empowerment Project, Enrich, Christian Action, Lensational, and Refugee Union.

The videos in this screening offer a thoughtful glimpse into the lives and perspectives of domestic workers, asylum-seekers, refugees, migrants, and ethnic minorities. Some videos showcase their other lives – as artists and designers, as community leaders, and as mothers, sisters, daughters and sons. Other videos provide a glimpse into other Hong Kongs, including the world of domestic worker beauty pageants and a visit to Stanley Prison, or new ways of seeing Hong Kong, such as participants’ first encounters as new migrants. Many emphasize the textures of everyday life and feature hard-won moments of calm amidst demanding work and busy lives in Hong Kong. These videos provide new ways to think about what we see or don’t see – in Hong Kong and in each other.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the project organizers, Dr. Vivian Wenli Lin, Co-Founder of Voices of Women Media and Dr. Julie Ham from the Department of Sociology (HKU). and story sharing by the Visualizing the Voices of Migrant Women Workers team and video directors.

The Visualizing the Voices of Migrant Women Workers project was supported by the HKU Knowledge Exchange Fund granted by the University Grants Committee.

About Voices of Women Media (VOW Media)

VOW Media has trained women in participatory media in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Nepal, Taiwan, India, and the Netherlands. VOW Media has worked with migrant sex workers, domestic workers, marriage migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers, women who have been trafficked and informal workers. We are a non-profit organization that is committed to providing women from marginalized communities with innovative media tools, such as video, radio, and photography, to enable them to voice their own lives, to empower them, and strengthen their voices. We believe that personalizing women’s individual experiences can stop violence inflicted on women, change social norms, and end discrimination.